UNSAYING, NOT KNOWING, AND POINTING AT THE MOON: Language and Non-dual Practice

Join us Feb 16 - 18 for an amazing program with philosopher John Dunne, PhD. For the non-dual Buddhist traditions, to use language is to be necessarily dualistic, yet language can also induce non-dual experience. How is this possible? John Dunne’s work focuses on Buddhist philosophy and contemplative practice.

Zen Brain Faculty

Neil Theise is a diagnostic liver pathologist and adult stem cell researcher in New York

City, where he is Professor of Pathology and of Medicine at the Beth Israel Medical Center of Albert Einstein College of Medicine. His research revised understandings of human liver microanatomy, which, in turn, led directly to identification of possible liver stem cell niches and the marrow-to-liver regeneration pathway. He is considered a pioneer of multi-organ adult stem cell plasticity and has published on that topic in Science, Nature, and Cell. Current laboratory investigations focus on nerve-stem cell interactions in human livers, melatonin-related physiology of human liver stem cell and regenerative processes, and aspects of human liver stem cell activation in acute, fulminant hepatic failure. His 2004 article in Tricycle magazine is entitled, From the Bottom Up: Is science rewriting emptiness with the emerging field of complexity theory? What Buddhists can learn from ants, atoms, and physics.

Jason Buhle, B.A. Jason Buhle is a graduate student in the Department of Psychology at Columbia University in New York, conducting functional brain imaging research within the Social/Cognitive/Affective Neuroscience Unit of Columbia University. He is the recipient of a 2005 Francisco J. Varela Memorial Grant from the Mind and Life Institute, to study attention and emotion regulation in advanced Zen meditators. His 2006 paper (co-authored with Dr. A. Raz) in the journal Nature Reviews Neuroscience is entitled, Typologies of attentional networks, and his presentation at the 2007 annual meeting of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society was entitled Expert meditators show enhanced vigilance, alerting and conflict resolution.

Alfred W. Kaszniak, Ph.D. Al Kaszniak, received his Ph.D. in clinical and developmental psychology from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 1976, and completed an internship in clinical neuropsychology at Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke's Medical Center in Chicago. He is currently Head of the Department of Psychology, Director of Clinical Neuropsychology, Director of the Arizona Alzheimer's Consortium Education Core, and a professor in the departments of psychology, neurology, and psychiatry at The University of Arizona. His work has focused on the neuropsychology of Alzheimer's disease and other age- related neurological disorders, memory self-monitoring, the biological bases of emotion, and emotion response and regulation in long-term Zen and Vipassana meditators. His 2006 paper (co-authored with Lis Nielsen) in the journal Emotion is entitled, Awareness of subtle emotional feelings: A comparison of long-term meditators and non-meditators.

James H. Austin, M.D. James Austin has spent most of his years as an academic neurologist, first at the University of Oregon Medical School and later at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. He is currently Clinical Professor of Neurology at University of Missouri Health Sciences Center. Dr. Austin's cultural background includes the first sabbatical spent in New Delhi, India; and the second spent in Kyoto, Japan, where he began Zen meditation training with an English-speaking Zen master, Kobori-Roshi, in 1974. He has a keen interest in the experimental designs and findings of investigators who are studying meditation and related states of consciousness. His early research background includes publications in the areas of clinical neurology, neuropathology, neurochemistry and neuropharmacology. Dr. Austin is the author of more than 140 professional publications, including three books: Zen and the Brain: Toward and Understanding of Meditation an Consciousness - Chase, Chance, and Creativity: The Lucky Art of Novelty; and most recently Zen-Brain Reflections His forthcoming book is entitled, Zen Brain, Selfless Insight.